Real-time electrical impedimetric monitoring of blood coagulation process under temperature and hematocrit variations conducted in a microfluidic chip

PLoS One. 2013 Oct 7;8(10):e76243. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0076243. eCollection 2013.

Abstract

Blood coagulation is an extremely complicated and dynamic physiological process. Monitoring of blood coagulation is essential to predict the risk of hemorrhage and thrombosis during cardiac surgical procedures. In this study, a high throughput microfluidic chip has been developed for the investigation of the blood coagulation process under temperature and hematocrit variations. Electrical impedance of the whole blood was continuously recorded by on-chip electrodes in contact with the blood sample during coagulation. Analysis of the impedance change of the blood was conducted to investigate the characteristics of blood coagulation process and the starting time of blood coagulation was defined. The study of blood coagulation time under temperature and hematocrit variations was shown a good agreement with results in the previous clinical reports. The electrical impedance measurement for the definition of blood coagulation process provides a fast and easy measurement technique. The microfluidic chip was shown to be a sensitive and promising device for monitoring blood coagulation process even in a variety of conditions. It is found valuable for the development of point-of-care coagulation testing devices that utilizes whole blood sample in microliter quantity.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Blood Coagulation*
  • Cardiac Surgical Procedures
  • Electric Impedance
  • Electrochemical Techniques / instrumentation
  • Electrochemical Techniques / methods*
  • Electrodes
  • Hematocrit
  • Hemorrhage / blood
  • Humans
  • Microfluidics / instrumentation
  • Microfluidics / methods*
  • Monitoring, Intraoperative / instrumentation
  • Monitoring, Intraoperative / methods
  • Point-of-Care Systems
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • Temperature*
  • Thrombosis / blood
  • Time Factors
  • Whole Blood Coagulation Time

Grants and funding

Financial support came from Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (Project number: CMRPD2B0011). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.